San Jose landed a pro women’s hockey franchise on Tuesday with the PWHL completing its ambitious four-team expansion process with a first entry into California.
The league now has 12 teams entering its fourth season, and has doubled in size since the PWHL was established in June 2023. In selecting San Jose, the PWHL adds a region with a population of about 7.6 million, strengthens its geographic footprint with a third Pacific Coast-based franchise, and enters a market with a strong history of supporting women’s sports and girls hockey development.
The team will play out of the NHL home of the San Jose Sharks, the SAP Center, with the bid to land the franchise led by the city and Sharks Sports & Entertainment.
This will be the third major professional women’s team to come to the Bay Area in the last few years, following Bay FC of the National Women’s Soccer League in 2024 and the Golden State Valkyries of the WNBA in 2025.
“When you look at where you want to be and you look at how this market has supported women’s sports and how the Valkyries have just blossomed and now Bay FC, you want to part of that,” said Amy Scheer, PWHL executive vice president of business operations. “It’s really cool to see women celebrated and to see the stadiums full. It was definitely a factor in wanting to come here and be part of the community.”
The new team was officially announced at a news conference at the Shark Tank that featured former Sharks star and Hall of Famer Joe Thornton in attendance and two trailblazing women’s athletes with ties to the area on stage in 1992 Olympic gold medal figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi and World Cup and Olympic champion soccer star Brandi Chastain.
There were also several young girls in attendance who have been part of the Junior Sharks hockey program and were excited about the launch of a pro team.
“We believe that women’s sport is not a hiccup, it’s not a charity, it’s not just, ‘OK, we’ll try it one time,’” said Chastain, a co-founder of Bay FC. “We have believed in women’s sports for a long time. I’ve been screaming about women’s sports for 50 or more years. The fact that we have this now, we have such a cadre of women’s athletes in our community. … It is incredible.”
San Jose’s selection closes the league’s second expansion process, which began with the addition of Detroit two weeks ago followed by Las Vegas and Hamilton, Ontario, a week later. They join Seattle and Vancouver, who were added last year, and the PWHL’s original six markets of Boston, New York, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Minnesota.
Scheer has previously said league officials are exploring splitting in either two conferences or multiple divisions. All four newcomers help fill geographical voids in reducing travel time between markets.
San Jose has also become a hockey hotbed, ranking sixth in the nation in girls hockey participation.
Sharks president Jonathan Becher said he has had serious interest in bringing professional women’s hockey to San Jose since 2019 when U.S. star Kendall Coyne Schofield competed in the NHL All-Star skills competition at the Shark Tank. He said the city tried during the previous expansion process and didn’t get a team but got the nod this time.
“I remember I was here in the audience, and I turned and looked at the people I was sitting next to, our own Sharks owner and the former GM, and said, we’ve got to get a women’s hockey team here in San Jose,” Becher said. “Well, it took a few years, but now they’re here.”
The yet-to-be-named team’s colors will be orange — in a nod to the Sharks — blue and white, representing the coastline and sky.
The success of Bay FC and the Valkyries helped make the league’s decision to make its first entry into California in San Jose.
Bay FC ranked third in the NWSL in attendance last season and drew 40,091 fans to a game at Oracle Park in San Francisco for the third largest crowd in league history.
The Valkyries made the playoffs as an expansion team when they led the league in attendance with more than 18,000 fans a game at Chase Center. The team was recently valued at a league-high $850 million by Sportico after the ownership paid an expansion fee of $50 million in 2023.
“I think it’s just an encouraging environment,” Yamaguchi said. “It’s exciting. Finally we’re seeing what the fan base can truly be for girls and women’s sports. That’s huge. It’s a great day today to be a part of this announcement and to know that women’s sports is just at the tip of the iceberg. It’s just going to get more and more popular.”
The PWHL controls all of its franchises, and is privately financed by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter and his wife, Kimbra.
The fast-paced growth represents the surge in attention the league anticipated women’s hockey would enjoy following the Milan Cortina Olympics in February. Another factor is the league preparing for a bumper-crop of high-level talent declaring for this year’s draft.
The league said it has already gotten nearly 2,000 requests for season tickets in the hours after the announcement of the new team and is confident it will meet attendance projections.
“We’re very pleased to see the number and that keeps going up,” Scheer said.
The 235-player prospect class includes five collegians who won Olympic gold representing the United States, and headed by Wisconsin defender Caroline Harvey, as well as a growing number of Europeans making the jump to North America.
By growing to 12 teams, including seven in the U.S., the PWHL is also in better position to secure a national broadcast partner. Scripps Sports is the likely candidate with the broadcaster taking the first step this season by airing PWHL playoff games on ION, which reaches 126 million American households.
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AP Sports Writer Josh Dubow contributed to this report.
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AP women’s hockey: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-hockey